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Saturday, August 27, 2011

Arrival

Cliff Blakmur's 1962 de Havilland Otter ... the Cadillac of the North.

My fishing partner, Kirk Deeter,
checks in with the family at
Prince Albert.

We're here.

After a night in beautiful Saskatoon (and I'm serious about that), we hopped on the Trans-West milk run, stopping off in little north-country outposts like Prince Albert and La Ronge before touching down in tiny Stony Rapids, which rests on the bank of the Fon du Lac River between Black Lake and Lake Athabasca.

From "Stony," we hopped on Cliff Blackmur's 1962 de Havilland Otter and motored west over some stunning northwoods scenery to the Otherside River Lodge, where we'll base our fly fishing operations for the next week.

Today, pike are on the menu, but I can't help but feel like a robin in freshly watered grass–last night, where the Otherside River dumps into Lake Athabasca, Arctic grayling were dimpling the surface of the water, chasing after a gray drake hatch. These massive mayflies simply didn't stand a chance against the hungry fish, and at what appeared to be a size 12, there were easy targets.